Tuesday, February 22, 2011

If, however irrationally, the barrier to you playing Minecraft has been that it wasn’t on your phone, you no longer have an excuse. Creator Markus Persson told Gamasutra yesterday that his studio Mojang is currently working on an official iPhone/iPad port for the colossal indie hit. Kotakuthen reported that an Android version is also in the works.

Minecraft’s success has allowed Persson to gradually expand his team to include folks like Aron Neiminen, who will head up the smartphone port. The larger team enables Persson to develop and then implement features he omitted from Minecraft’s Alpha release. Just yesterday, he tweeted about the team’s plans for a “food meter,” which would presumably require adventuring miners to consume those hams they’ve collected instead of stockpiling them as health items. The iOS/Android version may not see all these updates, however, as Persson’s team is committed to only including features that “make sense” for the platform.

Persson can make big changes like this because Minecraft is still technically in Beta. There’s a chance that – with added goals, a more defined structure and other survival systems – the game plays quite differently six to twelve months from now. When I “reviewed” Minecraft a few months ago, I expressed concerns that “there may come a time when Persson’s creativity sullies Minecraft’s raw potential for fun.”

No word on pricing or anything like that, which leads me to believe it will be a free app that lets you purchase a license for the game through www.minecraft.net like everyone else. Then you will be free to spend your commute mining to your heart’s content.